you led me to a field of baby pink clouds
with fairy lights in your stomach
and sunflowers wrapped around your thighs;
you were radiating like magnesium on fire.
you could drive across the oceans
or fly underground if you wanted.
you held the light in your hands
and your toes tingled with happiness.
we laughed with red velvet poppies,
cried with lavender-scented blades.
i stopped laughing,
stopped crying;
you had stopped laughing too,
but you were still crying.

the sunflowers that kissed your thighs
were beginning to wilt with doubt
and seeped into your skin,
and the fairy lights that shined in your stomach
burned you to death from the inside,
leaving you feeling nothing.

i sang songs of hope into your lungs
in attempt to revive you,
but you had buried yourself six feet underground
and left your friends three feet through.
i didn't give up though.
i refused to give up.
i sang songs of hope
until they became cries for help.
i was so desperate to keep you in one piece
that i had fallen and shattered into millions of pieces,
yet i shoved the shards into my mouth
and kept them under my tongue
while you told me
that you admired how strong and carefree i could be.

the thing is, dear melisa,
it's hard to tell others not to worry,
     when you yourself worry.
it's hard to convince others to live to see another day
     when you don't even know if you can make it out alive.
it's hard to stay standing strong
     when you feel like everyone around you is falling.

i cried for help
for you.
i cried because
i wanted you
to be able
to feel again.